The present invention relates to a water temperature regulator, and more particularly to a water temperature regulator that may not only regulate water temperature depending on personal preference or actual need but also help save valuable water resource, and is therefore very suitable for mounting in a bathroom and connecting to a plumbing system having a hot-water pipeline included therein.
General water heaters for family use can be divided into two types, namely, gas heater and electric heater.
When using a gas heater to supply hot water, water that has remained in the hot-water service pipe since last use of the heater would directly flow to the faucet instead of flowing through and heated by the heater. A user would usually turn open the hot-water faucet to release and drain such water that has not been heated. It is, of course, a pity to waste so much useful water only because the water is not heated to a desired temperature for our use. Such unnecessary waste of useful water occurs each time we turn open a hot-water faucet immediately after we ignite the gas heater. When there is finally hot water released from the hot-water faucet, the user would usually turn open the cold-water faucet at the same time in order to regulate the temperature of released hot water by mixing the cold and the hot water. A lot of valuable water resource and heat energy is therefore unnecessarily wasted in the course of obtaining a desired temperature of hot water supplied by the gas heater.
And, in the case of an electric heater, there would still be water unnecessarily wasted when the hot-water faucet is first turned open to let out hot water that has been heated but stored in the hot-water service pipe before the use. This is because the user would usually drain some hot water before it reaches a desired higher temperature. Such unnecessary waste of water would occur again when we turn open the faucets the next time. And, there are also chances that the user needs to lower the temperature of hot water by mixing it with some amount of cold water. This would also, of course, unnecessarily waste some heat energy used to heat the water.
The above two situations of unnecessary waste of water resource and heat energy frequently happen in almost every family houses. Therefore, it is desirable to develop a set of improved domestic water temperature regulator with which any water that is to be used but has not reached a desired temperature may be sent to a separate water storage for reuse later and thereby avoid unnecessary waste of water.